


I can't tell you, but I know it's mine

by equestrianstatue



Category: British Actor RPF, Good Omens (TV) RPF
Genre: M/M, Mutual Masturbation, and literally no other redeeming features
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 16:34:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20727332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equestrianstatue/pseuds/equestrianstatue
Summary: Ten minutes earlier, Michael’s drink clicking on the chrome and glass of the tabletop in a hotel bar: “Well, we’d both be doing it anyway. Just in different rooms.” A slightly wicked curve of a smile. “Tell me I’m wrong.”





	I can't tell you, but I know it's mine

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](https://good-omens-kink.dreamwidth.org/2332.html?thread=925212) on the Good Omens kink meme.
> 
> If you're someone I have to look in the eye on a regular basis, you honestly might want to consider not reading this, or at least pretending you didn't when we next see each other.

“Can I— ” Michael clears his throat, just the tiniest ruffle in the calm sea of his voice, “—can I see? Is that all right?”

David nods. He’s not sure exactly where the line’s getting drawn, but it doesn’t make much sense for it to be here.

It’s a long, knotty, snarled-up trip hazard of a line. It stretches back through the shifting tides of this evening, back through the interminable hamster-wheel of the press tour, back through drinks and texts and half-meant jokes, early starts on set and late-night line runs and, probably, the table read too.

One point on the line: Michael pulling him into a bear hug an hour off the plane this morning, standing back and holding him by the forearms, and then letting go.

Another point on the line, significantly earlier, over coffee in the middle of a night shoot: “Ah, well, if you were unmarried and that way inclined, we’d be having a very different conversation, but— ”, disappearing in the swirl of the steam before David had even had a chance to catch hold of it.

Another, several weeks later, one whisky too many: “Shame we didn’t see more of each other when we first met, really. When I was— unmarried.” Michael’s sharp, surprised glance.

Some other points: conversations taking odd little circuitous routes, sometimes deliberately through families, found and otherwise, dadhood, missing home; and sometimes, equally deliberately, skirting around them. Repeated circles, in London and Borehamwood and Cape Town, and then LA and New York and—

Ten minutes earlier, Michael’s drink clicking on the chrome and glass of the tabletop in a hotel bar: “Well, we’d both be doing it anyway. Just in different rooms.” A slightly wicked curve of a smile. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

It’s the cocky, swaggering thing Michael does as a joke, although he always half-means it; but it is, also, _You can tell me I’m wrong, obviously._

David’s stomach twists a little, his thighs tensing. A slight jolt of discomfort at being caught out. At the implication that Michael has been assuming, _imagining_— knowing— that once or twice David might have had one off the wrist after they’ve said goodnight. Not to mention the idea that Michael has been doing the same, which isn’t something that David has quite dared to think about, not too specifically.

And now, David’s hotel room, two floors up: difficult to think about anything else, what with Michael leaning against the countertop desk opposite the bed, rubbing his thumb over the seam of his trousers. Casually, easily, like he’s alone, except he’s watching David watch him do it.

David is sat on his own turned-down bed, the linen awkwardly neat underneath him, and here, blood thumping, fingers twitching, he is about to expose himself. But then he thinks: Christ, at this point, he may as well get comfortable. So he hooks his thumbs into his trousers, tugs them down and over his hips, all the way off. Kicks them onto the floor beside the bed. He doesn’t take his boxers off, but he pulls his cock out over the the lip of the elastic. Lets it catch for a moment against his balls. He swallows back a noise. This is so fucking stupid.

They have, quite deliberately, not touched. No accidental brushing of elbows when they’d got up from the table downstairs, no closer than a careful foot away from each other in the lift. An odd, precise dance of plausible deniability that now, when it comes down to it, actually makes the whole thing feel somehow more sordid. Just a man on a bed with half a hard-on, and something indecent to look at while he sees to it.

Michael is still watching him, rapt, and his thumb is still moving over his crotch at the same slow pace. Indecent enough, the sight of him almost but not quite touching himself, but—

“You as well, then,” David says, voice coming out a bit thick.

“Yeah,” Michael says. He unbuckles his belt, unzips his flies, and then he pulls his cock out, businesslike. It’s filling, curving just a little off to one side, and it would fit snugly into the palm of his hand. But instead of giving himself that first squeeze of relief, Michael just runs his fingers along the side of it. Light, tickling-looking movements, not nearly enough to take any kind of edge off. Teasing, building up to something more. And— oh, David realises, his throat going tight, Michael’s also showing it to him. Letting him get a good look.

David runs his tongue over his teeth, breathes in. Well. There it is. Here they are. He settles himself back against the headboard, and says, “How do you want to…?”

Michael says, a flash of something slightly amused in his eyes, “I reckon we can improvise.”

David nods. Wets his lips, suddenly self-conscious, although this is arguably the most instinctive act there is. So he runs his hand up over his hip, and then drags his fingers along the shaft of his cock like Michael is doing, and then he curls his hand around it and lets out a little breath of gratification. Michael, taking his cue, does the same thing.

And then, for an unreal and strung-out while, there’s only the familiar, quiet, dirty noise of David’s fist moving on his dick. Except louder, twice as loud, syncopated, against the same thing from Michael five feet away.

It’s— profoundly weird, actually. David has never done this before. People joke about it, enough that it’s obviously a rite of passage. Watching porn with a mate when you’re too young and horny to have much shame, or lads hunched round a magazine studiously not looking each other in the eye, but God, he’d have been mortified as a kid, never had half enough nerve to have done this anywhere _near_ anyone else. Anywhere other than in his skinny old single bed, lights out so none of the posters could see, knees bent up to make a guilty little tent of the covers. Hand shoved between his legs, listening desperately for movement anywhere else in the house, breathless and silent.

Once he’d actually got his end away— later, embarrassingly some time later— well, he’d preferred that. Hadn’t really looked back. He liked being touched, more than he liked being looked at, probably. _Oh, but aren’t you an actor? _Yeah, all right, fuck off.

So whenever he’s had his hand on his dick before now, he’s either definitely been having sex with someone or definitely not been having sex with someone, and whatever is happening now isn’t quite either of those things. This is a strange, seedy, tense-thrumming halfway house. David’s skin is prickling like someone’s about to touch it, his cock is pressing tight and urgent into his hand, and it’s nothing like a lazy wank, but it’s nothing like being kissed, either. That’s— a wild, unexpected thought. Michael’s mouth warm against his, the gentle tickle of his beard. And he’d kiss dirty, too, tongue and teeth and slow, hot breath. Push his fingers through David’s hair. The same fingers that are squeezing so precisely around his cock, giving it gentle, rolling little tugs.

“Can you look at me?” Michael says, at that exact moment, and for a second David doesn’t know what he means, because he _is_ looking. “It’s all right if you can’t, but…”

Oh. David swallows and drags his gaze up Michael’s body, away from the jut of his knuckles around his cock, up the fastened buttons of his shirt, to meet his eyes. They are dark and hungry and staring straight back at him. Focused. Appreciative.

David feels his mouth fall open, hears the wet click of his throat. He watches Michael’s tongue dart out to moisten his bottom lip. They’ve spent a lot of time watching each other, over the last year. Had to. They both have a bit of a gift for it— not just for looking, but for noticing, and responding. You can act without that, but not, David thinks, very well. Sometimes, when they were filming, Michael’s attention on him was full, open and fascinated. Sometimes it was just a small, secondary alertness, his eye ready to catch on some almost-insignificant detail and fold it away for later, ready to pull it out and toss it back at exactly the right moment. Working like that, you get quite good at knowing what people are likely to do next. It’s hard to escape someone’s attention, once you’ve got it.

“God, do you know what you look like?” Michael asks, the words sounding dragged up from somewhere. “Have you ever watched yourself?”

This is so far from likely that David almost laughs, but it’s just a breath catching in his throat. He shakes his head.

“I could tell you,” Michael says, after a moment. “D’you mind if I talk to you?”

David shakes his head again. “’Sfine,” he says, although this may or may not actually be true, and either way, it’s certainly an understatement.

“Well,” Michael says. “You look fit as fuck.”

David actually does laugh at this, a startled, breathy chuckle, and Michael grins, teeth slightly parted.

“I’d,” says Michael, and then his breath hitches, and his hips push forward a little more firmly from the edge of the countertop, his cock sliding in and out of the curve of his palm. “I’d love to— ” His eyebrows are raised, feeling this out. _Stop me if this isn’t what you want._ But David swallows, nods. “I’d love to get my hands on you,” Michael says, and this is, oh, fuck, this isn’t the line either, although it’s _a_ line, it’s one that is dragging all sorts of things into the realm of the possible, if not the actual. “I’d love to feel you up. Stroke your cock. Make you come myself.”

David bites his tongue, groans, feels his balls tighten. His breath is incriminatingly ragged, and his cock is starting to leak. He drags his thumb over the head, tries not to groan again, and fails.

“Yeah,” Michael says, low and wanting. “Get you off, nice and slow, and then kneel over you and come all over your chest. Make a right mess of you.”

It’s abruptly, and irrevocably, too much. David’s mouth goes dry. “Yeah,” he says, and he sounds fucking wrecked, but he’s so far gone he doesn’t even care. “Yeah, I’d like— ”

He doesn’t finish the thought. He hears himself make a small, broken noise as he comes, his hips pushing up into his vice-tight hand, dragging himself through it. The fingers of his other hand press down just behind his balls, body stretched out and shaking.

“Oh, yeah,” Michael is saying, his voice scraping over gravel, “Fuck, yeah, that’s it. That’s it.” He pulls in a breath through his teeth. “I mean, sure, I’d _like_ to come on you, but you know what, this isn’t half bad.”

It’s not the worst review David’s ever had.

“I won’t forget it in a hurry, is all I’m saying. If you’re ever having a really bad day, just think, somewhere out there I’m probably having a wank thinking about _you_ having a wank.”

“Yeah?” David says. He should feel embarrassed, he _does_ feel embarrassed, but he also feels serenely orgasm-drunk, and there’s a curl of something hot and pleased in the pit of his stomach.

He settles himself a bit more comfortably against the headboard, letting the pillows prop him up. He might as well watch. And then, swallowing, slowly, deliberately, he lets his legs fall open a little bit wider. There’s come on his thigh, and he drags his finger through it, so that Michael can see. Puts the tip of his finger in his mouth.

“Oh, you fucking monster,” says Michael, slightly breathless and absolutely delighted. He thrusts his hips harder, fucking his fist.

David lets his eyes drift across Michael’s body again, over the steady, deliberate motion of his arm, his feet planted solidly against the floor. His cock in his hand, nice and hard, balls hanging heavy, foreskin pulling back to show a bit of slick wetness at the tip.

“I’d suck you off,” David says, and means it.

“_Ah_,” Michael says, like it’s gripped him by the neck. “Oh, yeah. Fuck. Yeah.” He comes with his teeth gritted and a small shudder, pulsing into his hand, and it’s filthy and private and somehow disarmingly honest all at once.

They look at each other, afterwards, in a way that feels, briefly, very easy to do. Sharing in the surprised, secret dialogue of it. Michael’s mouth twitches upwards as his breath evens out.

Then Michael says, “Let me, ah, clean up,” and he goes into the bathroom. There’s the hum of the light switching on, and the splash of the tap running, and they don’t pick up the threads of the conversation. David doesn’t suggest that Michael could touch him, even just a little, a warm hand on a patch of bare skin, and Michael doesn’t say anything at all about David sucking his cock. But that’s something he knows, now. A half-developed picture to be shoved in both of their back pockets, and pulled out to have a good look at later. Something to get Michael hot and bothered in some other lonely jetlagged limbo of a hotel room, probably. David feels his toes curl, not entirely unpleasantly.

The tap turns off. David sits up, scrubs one hand through his hair, and wipes the come off his leg. When Michael reappears, he clicks off the light behind him and stands in the frame of the bathroom door, smile slightly sheepish.

“Well, I’ll— ” Michael says, nodding his head in the direction of the other door, the corridor outside. Then he seems to reconsider. “Unless that’s weird, unless you want to have a beer and watch telly or something. Or not. I honestly don’t mind.”

“Ah,” says David, and realises that he doesn’t think he can manage that. Michael sitting next to him on the bed, legs stretched out on the sheets he’s just watched David writhe around on, chatting about something normal. That, apparently, is the line. Tomorrow, normal again, sure. But tonight, this is something that has happened, and if that means they’re going to lie awake in separate rooms for the next couple of hours thinking about it, then so be it.

“I think I’m going to go to sleep,” David says, which he assumes will eventually be true.

“Yeah, me too,” says Michael, looking as if he actually might. “All right then. Well. I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.”

David ducks his head, involuntarily, but then he says, “Like you say. Not likely to forget it in a hurry.”

“No?” says Michael, and he smiles, quick and roguish. “Oh, well, that’s good.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Plausible Deniability](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25618858) by [robotboy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/robotboy/pseuds/robotboy)


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